Polish prime minister is ‘proud’ of events that triggered anti-Semitic incitement in 1968

(JTA) — The prime minister of Poland said his countrymen should be proud rather than ashamed of events that happened 50 years ago when anti-Semitism drove thousands of Jews to leave.

Mateusz Morawiecki during a debate at the University of Warsaw titled “March ’68, National Social Movement against Communism” blamed the Soviet Union, which controlled Poland until the USSR’s collapse, for fomenting anti-Semitism.

Last month, Morawiecki triggered a furious reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Polish leader said the Holocaust had some Jewish perpetrators. In the same month, Poland stirred controversy when it enacted a law that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes. Israel, Jewish groups and historians are among those who have blasted the measure.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Hezbollah said to be on alert in fear of Israeli strike

March 8, 2018 6:52am

Members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement in the city of Nabatieh, Nov. 8, 2017. (Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images)

(JTA) — Hezbollah reportedly has declared a state of emergency, fearing an Israeli attack.

The report Thursday in A-Rai al-Yum, an Arabic-language daily based in London, said that the Shiite militia has been on alert since Tuesday, at least in southern Lebanon, in anticipation of an Israeli strike on its forces or facilities. Citing sources within Hezbollah, the newspaper said the alert was over “secret maneuvers” that Hezbollah believes that the Israel Defense Forces has been carrying out recently.

Last month, Israel struck in Syria over what Israel said was a violation of its airspace by an unnamed aircraft that was being controlled by an Iranian command post in Syria. One of the fighter planes that carried out the strike crashed near Israel’s northern border after its pilots safely ejected.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Netanyahu says solution may not include ‘full sovereignty’ for Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Economic Club of Washington breakfast, Renaissance Hotel, March 7, 2018. (Economic Club of Washington)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to say whether he now believes in a two-state solution, saying it was up to the Palestinians to prove that a sovereign state would not threaten Israel.

“I want a solution where they have all the power they need to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten,” Netanyahu said Wednesday, addressing The Economic Club of Washington. “Does that comport with full sovereignty? I don’t know, but it’s what we need to live.”

Netanyahu’s conditions for a final status deal have not changed: He said as he has in the past that it is critical that Israel retain “overriding security” control in the West Bank, and that it control airspace.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Trump wishes outgoing economic adviser Gary Cohn well while calling him a ‘globalist’

March 8, 2018 2:30pm

President Donald Trump speaking at a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, March 8, 2018. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump bid farewell to his outgoing top economic adviser, calling him a “globalist” who is nonetheless “terrific.”

“This is Gary Cohn’s last meeting in the Cabinet,” Trump said Thursday at the meeting. “He’s been terrific. He may be a globalist, but I still like him. He is seriously a globalist. There’s no question. In his own way, but you know what, he’s a nationalist. He loves our country.”

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, made a similar statement on Tuesday on the official OMB Twitter feed.Click here for the full story

From PressTV

Syrian army tanks are seen in the former militant -held area of Beit Nayem in the Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on March 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has stressed that Western states are using claims of chemical weapons usage as an excuse to violate the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“Syria has lately seized, after liberating a number of regions in Hama countryside from terrorism, more than 40 tons of chlorine gas in the presence of the Chemical Weapons convention’s inspectors,” said a statement released by the ministry on Tuesday.

It noted that the United Nations and Chemical Weapons Convention had been informed about the trucks loaded with poisonous substances entering the country and a terrorist stockpile of Sarin gas in an archeological region in Idlib province.

“The Syrian Arab Republic, which has repeatedly affirmed its non-possession of any form of chemical weapons, and its non-use of chlorine gas as a weapon, reiterates that it is the first meant side in defending its citizens and in preventing the use of poisonous materials on its territory,” added the statement.

Earlier in the day, Russia rejected allegations that the Syrian government is using chemical weapons, stressing that only an international body can rule on the issue based on an “impartial” probe.

Last week, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is sympathetic to the militants operating against the Damascus government, claimed a suspected chlorine attack had taken place in the militant-held al-Shifuniyah village of the Eastern Ghouta region on February 25.Click here for the full story

From PressTV

Netanyahu arrives in Washington to meet Trump

Mon Mar 5, 2018 07:03PM

US President Donald Trump (R) meets with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, March 5, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in Washington for a meeting with US President Trump and to deliver a speech to America’s biggest pro-Israel group and resume his critique of the Iran nuclear deal, even as a corruption scandal involving Netanyahu grows in Israel.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Netanyahu and his wife Sara outside the South Portico of the White House shortly after 12:00 pm on Monday.

Netanyahu is expected to encourage Trump to counter Iran in Syria and express his concerns about the Iran nuclear agreement signed during the administration of former US President Barack Obama.

A warm welcome at the White House, and a speech to a receptive audience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) could distract Netanyahu momentarily from the graft allegations in Israel.

The visit comes as both Trump and Netanyahu face politically damaging investigations but Netanyahu finds himself in a far more precarious position than Trump.

Israeli police say they have enough evidence to indict Netanyahu on bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two cases, and the attorney general there is deciding whether to file charges, a process that could take months.

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Poland’s president heckled at 50th anniversary of anti-Semitic purge

March 8, 2018 2:40pm

President Andrzej Duda of Poland speaking at the University of Warsaw to commemorate the events in Poland known as March 1968, March 8, 2018. (Andrzej Iwanczuk/AFP/Getty Images)

WARSAW (JTA) — Poland’s president asked for forgiveness for an anti-Jewish wave that drove Jews from the country in March 1968, but said today’s Poland is not responsible for the events of 50 years ago.

“I bow my head with great regret as president. To those who have been expelled, I would like to say ‘Please, forgive me, forgive Poland and Polish people,’” Andrzej Duda said Thursday at the University of Warsaw at a commemoration of the events in Poland known as March 1968.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, countries under the influence of the former Soviet Union condemned Israel. In 1968, Polish students protested against censorship. In addition to suppressing the students, the communist government engineered a massive anti-Semitic campaign that would see Jews dismissed from jobs and thrown out of the universities. Several thousand Jews left Poland for good.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Netanyahu calls Nikki Haley a ‘tsunami of fresh air’ at UN

March 8, 2018 3:29pm

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel meeting with U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley at the United Nations in New York, March 8, 2018. (Haim Zach/Israeli Government Press Office)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, that she was like a “tsunami of fresh air” at the body.

“I wanted to tell you how much we appreciate the defense of Israel and the truth that the president and you bring into these cloistered halls that are so damp, you know, with anti-Israel venom,” Netanyahu said Thursday in his meeting with Haley at the United Nations in New York. “It’s not a breath of fresh air, it’s like a tsunami of fresh air.”

The U.S. and Israeli delegations to the United Nations have worked closely for decades to combat the institution’s anti-Israel bias, but Haley, with President Donald Trump’s blessing, has made it a focus of her ambassadorship. She has blocked the appointment of Palestinian officials to U.N.-affiliated groups, pulled the U.S. out of the world body’s cultural arm for failing to recognize the Western Wall as holy to Jews and vocally pushed back against bias in a number of forums.Click here for the full story

Qatar has signed a security pact with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), enabling forces with the military alliance to enter and transit the Persian Gulf state and use its al-Ubeid Air Base there.

The agreement was signed at the presence of Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday.

The two sides discussed the security situation in the Persian Gulf region, which has been hit by an unprecedented diplomatic crisis involving Qatar and a Saudi-led quartet of states.

The deal is expected to facilitate NATO missions and operations in the region, including the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, a follow-on mission for the US-led forces who formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014.

Al-Ubeid Air Base, located around 30 kilometers southwest of Doha, hosts some 11,000 military forces, mostly Americans.

Qatar is one of four countries – along with Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates – participating in NATO’s Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI).

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

More women are in charge of Jewish groups in the former Soviet Union, thanks to a communist legacy

Anna Grigolaya, left, with her son and daughter. (Courtesy of Grigolaya)

(JTA) — For a man to gallantly open a door for a female stranger is neither common nor universally appreciated in Ukraine, where gender salary gaps used to be illegal and female tank crews fought the Nazis.

Throughout the former Soviet Union, the communist revolution instituted far-reaching gender equality at a time when women in some Western countries, including the United States, were not yet allowed to vote.

Indeed, the first time that International Women’s Day, which is March 8, was declared a national holiday was in the Soviet Union, in 1918. It was later adopted by the United Nations in 1975, but it remains to this day a bank holiday in several post-communist countries. (It’s also the only day when holding a door for a strange woman on the street or giving her flowers is guaranteed not to invoke any negative reaction.)

With the collapse of communism, so did government enforcement of gender equality in the workplace, resulting in Western-style wage gaps. Although overshadowed by its grim human rights record and repressive state machinery, communism’s feminist agenda seems to have had a particularly strong and lasting effect in unexpected places — including on the leadership of the sizable Jewish minority of the former Soviet Union, or FSU.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NICE, France (JTA) — A French judge has dropped hate crime charges against Arab teenagers who allegedly assaulted a Jewish teenager outside a synagogue near Paris, a watchdog group said.

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, protested in a statement on Tuesday the omission from the indictment of the suspects in the Feb. 28 assault in Montmagny.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his intention to combat anti-Semitism in France, which he said was “returning” to society there in the proliferation of assaults on Jews and hate speech against them.

“There are hatreds that are rising again, there are the worse kinds of crimes,” Macron said at the annual dinner of the CRIF Jewish umbrella organization.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Russian company names an ice cream ‘Poor Jew’

March 7, 2018 11:10am

A company in Russia’s Tartarstan region sells an ice cream cone named “Poor Jews.” (Slavitsa)

(JTA) — Jews in Russia’s Tatarstan region are objecting to a new ice cream called “Poor Jew.”

The ice cream cone, announced last month by the Slavitsa company in Naberezhnye Chelny, 600 miles east of Moscow, is wrapped in an image of Israel’s flag.

Leonid Shteinberg, a leader of the Jewish community in Naberezhnye Chelny, has called the name “racist” and demanded its production and sale be halted, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.Click here for the full story

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Former Argentine president to go on trial for allegedly covering up Iranian involvement in Jewish center bombing

March 6, 2018 2:13pm

Former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is one of 12 ex-government officials in Argentina going on trial in the AMIA Jewish center bombing case. (Mauro Rico via Flickr)

(JTA) — Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will go to trial over accusations that she covered up the alleged involvement of senior Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center.

Eleven other former government officials also will be tried on charges involving the cover-up and abuse of power, a federal judge ruled Monday.

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

He’s the Jew who inspired the PLO declaration of independence. Now he wants to take down AIPAC.

Jerome Segal, a philosopher running for the U.S. Senate, at the AIPAC policy conference, March 4, 2018. (Ron Kampeas)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Thirty years ago, Jerome Segal made headlines in Israel and the United States with an odd pedigree: He was the committed Jew who wrote the Palestinian declaration of independence.

That was never quite accurate — the University of Maryland professor of philosophy wrote an op-ed for a Palestinian newspaper from which the Palestine Liberation Organization appears to have cadged a good portion of its 1988 declaration — but it didn’t keep the Israeli media from calling him “The Palestinians’ Jewish Herzl.”

Now he has cast himself in another unlikely role: A Bernie Sanders-style contender for the U.S. Senate seat in Maryland currently held by Ben Cardin. Segal believes that if he tops Cardin in the Democratic primary, he can show that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not as all-powerful as some believe.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Segal was making his case this week at AIPAC’s annual policy conference, having paid the $599 entry fee.Click here for the full story